Welcome Darkscribe.
Sorry for all the negative inputs on this forum. We just love UO and hate to see it keep losing players and we hate the facts, that we see us self play less and mostly hang on this forum hoping for some kind of miracles that will safe UO and bring it back to it's former glorie.
Sorry that we had lost hope and feer the worse when we get a new lead. A new lead with new ideas for UO had not always been good for us, even when all had shared the same goal, to bring back UO.
I wish you and your teams all luck, you will need it. The game is so messed up from the last 8 years trying.
We do not need more land, we already have enough, tweak the one we have.
We don't need more dungeons, we already have to many and the old ones may need some love
We don't need more items, we already have far to many to fill our houses
We don't need more single player systems like BODs, Plant systemor crafting that take alot of time before you get the item you want. We are losing players this way, players need time to interact, to hang out with each others, to enjoy the game. If I have alot of work I need to do when I login UO I may just logout again and take a long walk RL to relax after RL work.
The game need to be more easy, also for the ones who only have 10-30 min at the time to play between RL stuff like taking care of kids or business.
If I go back to before UO:R, we did not have alot land, towns and dungeons so there was players everywhere, in town, in the wilderness, in the player towns and in the dungeons. You could easy find someone to play with, you did not feel lonely.
The large servers we have now need so much more players to bring back the community we had before.
You had got an impossible job but I really wish you will make it a success both for you, EA and the players.